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Potash Hikes Dividend by 33% - Analyst Blog

Crop nutrient company
Potash Corp of Sakatchewan Inc
. (
POT
) recently announced a roughly 33% hike in its quarterly dividend
to 28 cents per share from the prior payout of 21 cents. The
increased dividend will be paid on May 2, 2013, to stockholders
of record as of Apr 11, 2013.

The revision marked the company's fourth dividend hike since
2011 and resulted in more than 700% cumulative increase in cash
dividend.

The company's adjusted earnings (excluding a provision for
settlement of antitrust claims) of 52 cents per share missed the
Zacks Consensus Estimate of 59 cents. Earnings, as reported, fell
to 48 cents per share from 78 cents per share a year ago.

Revenues came in at $1,642 million in the quarter, down 12%
from $1,865 million in the year-ago quarter, missing Zacks
Consensus Estimate of $1,853 million. The year-over-year decline
was due to reduced contributions from all three nutrients arising
from slack global fertilizer markets and lower demand.

The company expects earnings for the first quarter and full-year
2013 to be in the range of 50 cents to 65 cents per share and
$2.75 to $3.25 per share, respectively.

The company expects gross profits from its potash business to be
in the range of $1.9 billion to $2.4 billion in 2013. It expects
shipments to be in the range of 8.5-9.2 million tons. The
combined phosphate and nitrogen gross margin for full-year 2013
has been forecasted in the range of $1.5 billion to $1.7
billion.

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